I Was Once Fired for Being LGBTQ, But ENDA Should Be Thrown Out

I’ve been fighting for workplace and housing protections for more than a decade, both in my native home of Utah and on the national level. In my opinion, there is no more important issue for LGBTQ Americans than making sure we cannot be fired from our jobs or evicted from our homes just because of who we are. It once happened to me, and that’s why I no longer support ENDA.

In a virtually unprecedented broad landscape of support, banning workplace and housing discrimination against LGBTQ people has majority support in every single congressional district in the country. Liberals and Conservatives alike have all stood up and said it is absolutely wrong for an employer or a landlord to fire or evict someone just because they happen to be of a different sexual orientation or gender identity. Think about that for a minute, can you come up with any other national issue the country is facing right now that could claim the same level of consensus? 

Yet the livelihoods, families, and well-being of LGBTQ people are still in constant danger, thanks primarily to conservative state legislatures who have refused to pass this most basic of protections. 

The Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would ban such employment discrimination, has been proposed in Congress almost every year since the 1990s, and almost always with the same small support from a handful of Democratic Congresspeople, but without any results. That changed last year, when the U.S. Senate marked history by passing the bill (it’s still sitting in the House, without much chance of the Republicans allowing it to be heard). 

But now, something has changed about the bill. Thanks to hard lobbying about conservative groups such as the Family Research Council and Heritage Institute (including their State Policy Network groups in every state in the country), ENDA has been altered to now include “religious exemptions” for business owners. 

Are religious exemptions to ENDA really so bad that they warranted the recent withdrawal of support for ENDA by The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the ACLU, GLAD, Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center, as happened yesterday? To be precise, yes. 

Religious exemptions to laws are an extremely slippery slope, judicially. While religions themselves, and businesses owned by religions have always (and will always) be exempt from certain employment practices, the idea of allowing a private, for-profit business the right to decide unilaterally to impose the religious beliefs of its owners on employees (and customers for that matter) is a deadly road. 

As we have now seen happen with Hobby Lobby, the Right has twisted the meaning of religious liberty and religious freedom. Principles which used to mean the right of an individual to believe, or not believe, as they saw fit, are now being erroneously applied to businesses—allowing these institutions to legally force employees to comply with the owner’s beliefs, or face unemployment. 

It’s a widespread campaign by the Right, who are pushing so hard for these religious exemptions in the courts, state legislatures, and in the press because they know that if they succeed in codifying them into law, and employers can simply use religion as a legal justification for discrimination, then ENDA (along with women’s access to reproductive health care and birth control) mean very little. 

I was furious when I saw the Human Rights Campaign double down on their ENDA support. HRC president Chad Griffin would have us believe that nothing has changed, that “the red line” hasn’t been crossed yet, and has reiterated the support of his enormous (and predominantly White, gay and male focused) organization for ENDA as-is.

But just because HRC is willing to throw ENDA under the bus to get a “win” doesn’t mean the rest of us should. 

“But Eric,” a Facebook commenter said to me last night, “equality will never be achieved all at once. We shouldn’t be willing to throw away good for perfect. Think of it like the minimum wage! If you ask for $20 an hour, and they offer you $15 an hour, would you turn that down?” 

Let’s once and for all set the record straight on religious exemptions for for-profit businesses. Allowing the Right to poison ENDA and legalize corporations using the religious beliefs of their owners (sincerely held or not) to dictate the beliefs of their employees isn’t taking the $15 instead of the $20. It’s letting them call it $20 an hour, but still only getting paid $7.25. 

I will never stop fighting for employment and workplace protections. But we can’t support a bill outlawing discrimination that also includes a provision to permanently legalize it.

 

Image by Rich Renomeron via Flickr 

 

Follow Author Eric Ethington on Twitter @EricEthington

Eric Ethington has been specializing in political messaging, communications strategy, and public relations for more than a decade. Originally hailing from Salt Lake City, he now works in Boston for a social justice think tank. Eric’s writing, advocacy work, and research have been featured on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, CNBC, the New York Times, The Telegraph, and The Public Eye magazine. He’s worked as a radio host, pundit, blogger, activist and electoral campaign strategist. He also writes at NuanceStillMatters.com